Pakistani doctor imprisoned for helping CIA find bin Laden

Shakil Afridi was accused of running a fake vaccination campaign, in which he collected DNA samples, that is believed to have helped the American intelligence agency track down bin Laden in a Pakistani town.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18186393

In the global fight against polio, Pakistan is the key battleground, with the highest number of cases in the world.

Nearly 200 children were paralysed here in 2011 - the worst figures in 15 years. And the Pakistani strain of the virus has crossed borders - causing outbreaks in Afghanistan and China.

The Pakistan government has already declared polio to be a national emergency. A small army of health workers - 88,000 - is targeting 33m children for vaccination.

But officials admit as many as three quarters of a million children still have not been immunized.

The government says immunization campaigns have been disrupted in recent years by a number of factors, including heavy flooding and military campaigns against the Taliban.

There has been opposition too from some powerful clerics - and damage was done by the fake CIA vaccination campaign which helped to locate Osama Bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbotabad.